Just How Good is Johnny Davis?
What makes Johnny Davis an easy bet to be a very good NBA player and his under-discussed sneaky high ceiling
Taking the world of college basketball by storm, Wisconsin’s 6’5” combo guard, Johnny Davis, averaged nearly 20 points per game along with over 8(!!!) rebounds per game this season, displaying blistering improvements from his relatively quiet freshman campaign. Such strides earned him the Big 10 Player-of-the-Year title and led him to become a finalist for National Player-of-the-Year. Johnny Davis’ consistent late-game heroics propelled an overachieving Wisconsin team to unforeseen heights as he became a must-watch on a nightly basis, and cemented himself as a Badgers legend. Despite his magical college season, Johnny Davis’ NBA Draft stock has seemingly become more undervalued by the day, a puzzling development given what he brings to the table as a prospect.
The Offense
While best known for his shot-making prowess, Johnny Davis’ slashing provides the most appeal for him as an NBA prospect on offense. With intelligent timing, a quick first step, decisive burst, and a crisp change-of-direction ability, all he needs is a slight crease to get downhill.
Any slight shift or misstep and Johnny will gladly zip right by. We often see this principle through his infatuation with rejecting ball screens, taking precise paths in the opposite direction to blaze by defenders preparing for incoming ball screens.
When he’s not rejecting ball screens, Johnny Davis can be seen using jabs and some basic dribble sequences to sell moves and self-create angles to attack off-the-dribble.
Still, there are still far too many possessions during which he fails to force an initial reaction from his defender and simply tries to explode past them without any real lane to do so. He can get away with it at times, but lacking truly elite explosion, good defenders often wall off these drives from Johnny prior to any penetration at all.
With a good, not great burst, Johnny Davis will have to tighten and evolve his handle to self-create more downhill opportunities. His drives are often derailed when he fails to sync his dribble moves with his sharp changes in direction. Getting to the point where his dribbles can flow with shifting weight to get outside of defenders’ bodies will do wonders for Johnny as a creator with how little of a gap he needs to get his defender on his hip.
Getting downhill won’t be an issue for Johnny Davis when attacking closeouts or coming off second-side off-ball actions. But getting to a point where he can regularly generate these opportunities for himself will make his flashing far more valuable.
Johnny Davis’ success in capitalizing on downhill opportunities stems from several incredible physical attributes, skills, and tendencies. For one, he plays with an amount of strength and physicality which normally far exceeds the bounds of a 6’5” 196-pound frame.
Johnny Davis’ perplexing level of balance allows him to stay oriented while weaponizing contact to churn through layers of defense and eviscerate rim protection. He mixes his sizzling changes in direction and deceleration to carve up routes through traffic, and conquers gaps in the defense with a vast array of violent gathers, shrugging off digs in the process.
Johnny Davis’ power generation, particularly off of two feet, springs him into the air instantly, and can aerially propel him laterally to help create finishing angles. His body control allows him to contort himself for unorthodox finishes mid-air while his strength, physicality, and balance aid him in finishing through contact.
According to Synergy Sports, Johnny Davis shot about 60% of his layups with his right hand and the other 40% with his left—a mark far more balanced than any other top 2022 draft prospect. He has the touch and the craft to pull off elaborate finishes with either hand. He’s truly an ambidextrous finisher, scoring in the 78th percentile of all players in efficiency at the rim. Johnny Davis’ slashing also propelled him to the free-throw line 6.3 times per game, good for 3rd in the Big 10 behind giants Kofi Cockburn and E.J. Liddell. He may not quite have the nuclear traditional athleticism of someone like Jaden Ivey, but Johnny Davis’ wits, timing, and methodical exploitation of functional physical tools make him a potent slasher in his own right.
Johnny Davis’ former offensive context amplifies the grandeur of his slashing success as Wisconsin was a horribly-spaced team, even for college standards, ranking 319th in the NCAA in 3P%. Drives were routinely killed when there was simply nowhere to go, for lack of better phrasing. Johnny Davis often got past his man off-the-dribble, just to find the other four defenders clogging the lane. I’d also like to add that all of his efficiency numbers, especially finishing wise were much higher prior to the ankle injury he suffered towards the end of the season.
When his drives are cut off, or simply not plausible, Johnny Davis falls back on his deep bag of counters, primarily consisting of difficult shot-making. He does go to this part of his game a lot when he can’t create a driving lane initially. But with the putrid spacing he played alongside, he was forced to fall back on these counters a bit too often to little fault of his own, leading to many mislabeling him as someone who relies on difficult shot-making as his primary mode of scoring. This is something I’d heavily push back on, given his scoring around the rim and ability to rack up points at the free-throw line.
While his shot diet will likely consist of fewer jump shots in the NBA, his shot-making remains very note-worthy in his outlook as a prospect.
Johnny Davis took, and made, more off-the-dribble jumpers than anybody else in the Big 10, many coming off of drives. His efficiency on these shots wasn’t quite elite, but that would be an ambitious expectation given the volume and difficulty of these attempts. He rises to his high release point swiftly and strongly. He can align his shot off of messy footwork given his balance, and his touch on his release is exquisite. Such an approach empowers him to rise and shoot it whenever he pleases, even when he fails to create adequate space with his handle.
Johnny Davis’ shot-making ability continues out to the 3-point line, where he shot 31% this season on nearly 4 attempts per game. Again, the percentage sans context isn’t the gaudiest, but his shot diet contained a heavy dose of pull-ups, step-backs, and even a few heaves. His quick, strong, load-up into his jumper remains intact from behind the arc, and he can still get into it at any time.
At the next level, Johnny Davis will be the recipient of more catch-and-shoot opportunities playing next to legitimate creation that his Wisconsin cannot offer. Johnny Davis converted 38.1% of such opportunities this season. It’s also important to note that in a scaled-down role as a freshman, he shot 38.9%(14/32) from 3, he shot nearly 80% from the free-throw line this season, and he shot 37% on 228 long 2s this season, three great indicators of his shooting ability.
Johnny Davis’ shooting will be a weapon at the next level. He can shoot off of spot-ups and has the pull-up shooting to punish drop coverage and finish stunted drives. The off-the-dribble shooting also adds the ability to score off self-creation, both on the perimeter and in the post, where he operates often and can exploit smaller defenders. There were also some flashes of proficiency shooting off of movement from Johnny Davis during his tenure at Wisconsin, dilating the breadth of actions he can thrive in. Favorable outcomes would see Johnny Davis as a very good shot-maker in the NBA, and would do wonders to raise his ceiling as a player.
Being able to collapse defenses with drives and lift defenders with shooting gravity leads to passing windows presenting themselves. Routinely taking advantage of these windows is easier said than done, yet is an absolute necessity for offensive creators.
Johnny Davis is a brisk processor, especially off of drives. He sees the openings created with his rim pressure and hits his teammates fairly quickly with diverse, ambidextrous, deliveries.
There are levels to passing, however. Right now, Johnny Davis’ passing is more of a compliment to his scoring. The next step would be to become more of a proactive passer, anticipating defensive reactions ahead of time to lead teammates to scoring opportunities through passing. There are some flashes of such passing, but they were rare in his context at Wisconsin.
Johnny Davis also wins along the margins on offense, filling gaps, cutting, and getting offensive rebounds, a rare occurrence to see out of someone tasked with a large creation load.
The Defense
The functional athletic traits that help make Johnny Davis such a potent offensive player may play an even larger role on the other side of the ball.
It’s impossible to screen Johnny Davis. The strength and balance he possesses in a somewhat thin frame allow him to simultaneously get skinny and power through screens at the same time. He is quick and nimble enough to get around screens, but can still dust off contact when there is no choice but to face it. His ability to decelerate and change direction in an instant as well as his 6’8.5” wingspan also allow him to stay connected with his man through multiple screens. Johnny Davis also moves very well laterally, utilizing a blatant cross-step, and has a constantly-revving motor, remarkably even with such a large offensive load. Such traits make him an excellent option to stick on opponents’ best guard or smaller wing.
Off the ball, Johnny Davis is also very active and effective. Top defenses today focus on stacking rim protection from multiple players, and Johnny Davis brings a fair amount from the backcourt. He gets off the ground in an instant and has the length and timing to alter shots. These abilities also beautifully complement his recovery skills.
Additionally, Johnny Davis gets into passing lanes for steals and is impactful around the nail with digs. While he can be too ambitious on closeouts at times, and occasionally gets left in the dust by super quick guards, Johnny Davis provides a sweet blend of event creation and soundness on defense to make him one of the best defenders in the class, regardless of position.
The Outlook
Johnny Davis will likely never be the engine of an NBA offense as he was for Wisconsin this season. In addition to a very high-end shooting outcome, his handle would have to improve dramatically, and his passing would have to break through to another stratosphere. Never say never, but good primary creator bets are rare, and there don’t seem to be many in this draft class.
Still, Johnny Davis has far too many on-ball capabilities to not provide noteworthy creation for an NBA team. He creates advantages with his off-the-dribble drives and excels at both scoring and distributing in a variety of ways out of these drives. He takes advantage of positional size and strength as well as terrific shot-making when punishing defenders in isolation, both on the perimeter and in the post. He has the versatile scoring package, passing chops, and control to run pick-and-rolls from a standstill or off of movement.
Quality offensive creation is at a premium in the NBA, and Johnny Davis will provide some while also thriving as a compliment to teammates’ creation with his ability to finish plays all over the court, move without the ball, and create second advantages with driving and linking passing. He also brings very good and versatile defense with a motor that’s always revving and generating winning plays. There are only a handful of players on the planet who check all of the boxes that Johnny Davis does.
And this is all just the baseline of what Johnny Davis will bring to the table in the NBA, there’s very real upside in every aspect he provides impact in. He could easily turn out to be a game-changing defender, his shot-making and shooting could very well break through to the next level and become great, his handle could get to the point at which he bunches up points off self-created drives, his instincts and anticipation skills could combine with his ambidextrousness to turn him into a proactive passer, at just 196 pounds he could add even more strength to become a premier NBA strength-based creator, and his process and feel for the game will naturally mature with experience, as he is just 20 years old.
Johnny Davis is someone who will surely bring tangible impact in nearly every facet of the game with the versatility to fulfill a plethora of roles on both ends of the floor. This all-around impact will be unaccompanied by glaring weaknesses, and there lies palpable upside in many different aspects of his game, giving him very legitimate star potential with numerous paths to reaching such levels, and making Johnny Davis someone I would spend a top-5 pick on in the 2022 NBA Draft this June.